


Outbreak

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 17:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had to keep reminding himself that it wasn't cranky old Mrs. Chambers anymore, banging on his wall and yelling at him to turn down his damn music. It wasn't Dave from 1B, sprawled on the staircase out of his head on the meth. Mrs. Chambers was dead. Dave was dead. They were all dead, rotting things who wanted to take a bite out of him and he had to put them down like rabid dogs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Outbreak

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-Series. Written for LJ's hc_bingo for the prompt, "death"
> 
> * * *

Daryl stares listlessly as the names of the rescue centres scroll by on the muted television screen. Been nothing but these lists for the past three days, ever since the anchors bolted out of their chairs, hastily unclipping mic cords and side-eying someone out of camera range. They haven't been updated in a good forty-eight hours, either. Daryl feels sorry for the fools who're heading out to places like the town halls in Grantville and Senoia, expecting food and shelter and someone to take care of them. Don't take a genius to figure out that there's nobody at the switch and those shelters most likely been compromised long ago. 

He ought to be long gone by now, already halfway to the old hunting cabin. Doesn't know why he's sticking it out in a stuffy one bedroom apartment, slumped in a chair with warped springs and just waiting for the power to go out and the food to go bad. 

He sits up straighter when he hears the thump in the hall.

Holds his breath.

When the thump sounds again, louder, closer to the door, he reaches out to load the bow. 

It didn't take him long to figure out that gunshots just bring more of the rotters, like ringing a big old dinner bell. But he wasted a shit ton of ammo going through the little three-story building in the beginning, taking out the ones that had got bit and then made it back to their shitbox apartments to die, before he realized that a headshot was the only sure-fire way to take them out. 

It wasn't easy at first. He had to keep reminding himself that it wasn't cranky old Mrs. Chambers anymore, banging on his wall and yelling at him to turn down his damn music. It wasn't Dave from 1B, sprawled on the staircase out of his head on the meth. Mrs. Chambers was dead. Dave was dead. They were all dead, rotting things who wanted to take a bite out of him and he had to put them down like rabid dogs. Had to drag them to the fire escape and pitch them out to the alley like so much garbage. He kept hearing his ma's voice, telling him to at least say a few words over them… but if God was ever listening, He stopped long ago.

He put the barricade together in the downstairs hall the day after he tossed the last body from the fire escape. He hasn't had a walker breach it for days. 

Daryl edges to the door, his shoulder to the warped jamb. Stands still and silent until he hears the brush of fabric against the wall, the skitter of nails, and can place almost exactly where the noise is coming from. He takes a breath before flinging open the door, stepping into the hall and slotting his crossbow into place in one fluid motion.

Merle smiles up at him lazily. "Heyyyy, little brother."

* * *

"You drunk?" Daryl snaps out incredulously. It's not really a question. His idiot brother is clearly two sheets to the wind.

"Jus' a little somethin' to take the edge off," Merle says. He groans when he leans back on the sofa, shifts on the worn fabric. "Can't blame me, with what's going on out there. You been outside, little brother?"

"Not since it all started goin' to shit," Daryl says. He doesn't like to think about that, the National Guard barricade abandoned, the walkers spewing into the streets. His heart pounding double-time as his boots slapped on the pavement, dodging grasping hands and snapping teeth. He shakes his head, pushes the memories away. "Went out and stocked up on canned goods. Got enough jerky to open a damn store."

"It ain't good out there," Merle says. He shifts again, winces as he pulls a flask out of his pocket. "Got people thinkin' that a couple of pieces of wood nailed to a window will keep them rotters out, and the rotters breakin' through easy as breathin'. Got people running willy-nilly without a damn thought in their heads, screamin' and just bringin' more of 'em down on into the streets. Had to fight my way through just to get this far."

Daryl narrows his eyes, studies Merle critically and reaches out a hand. "You okay? You bit?"

"Ain't bit," Merle snaps. "Quit your damn motherin'."

Merle scowls at him, the whiskey in his grasp splattering on the threadbare arm of the sofa when he skitters away from the touch. It's not the first time Merle's baptized his furniture with whiskey or Budweiser, and he only got the damn thing from Goodwill anyway, so Daryl keeps his mouth shut. Besides, lots more than whiskey gets spilled at the end of the world.

* * *

"How many bolts you got?"

"Enough."

Merle nods once, briefly, before hopping down from the first floor landing. The fire escape rattles under his boots and Daryl holds his breath, but the rotters at the end of the alley don't pay the sound no mind, too intent on something at the other end of the street. Daryl's pretty sure he knows what it is they're all heading toward.

They'd heard the car earlier in the day, when he and Merle were on their way back from loading up the truck. Heard the rattle-puff of the engine, wheezing its way down the block, and the sound of the car door thunking shut quietly when the engine gave out altogether. Heard the voices talking, quietly, but sound carries when there's nothing else moving but the dead. They heard the gunshots and the screams.

He lands softly at his brother's side, scans the alley again. The last of the walkers has already passed by, a slow one, dragging a broken ankle, but he still hesitates at the bottom of the rickety stairs, drawn to the pool of bodies at his feet.

Mrs. Chambers stares up at him sightlessly. And sure, she was a crotchety old broad who gave him shit more than he deserved, but she also came over with homemade soup last winter when he got bronchitis, and sat up with him not saying a damn word the night he found out the old man kicked it. Hell, she even lent him the money for that college course and never bitched that he could only pay her back a measly fifty bucks a month. She deserves better than lying in some alley with her dirty housedress riding up around her thighs and the crows pecking at her skin. 

He flinches when Merle spits, the glob of phlegm landing perilously close to the old woman's blood-matted hair. 

"You ready for this, little brother?"

Daryl pulls his gaze away from the dead body, from the lost opportunities. He never even got to thank her.

He shifts the backpack on his shoulder, feels the edge of his course book press against his spine. Nods once at Merle – the reason he somehow always stayed in his crummy apartment and at his crappy job, pissing away his money on beers at the tavern or on bailing Merle's skinny ass out of jail. The reason he didn't just grab old Mrs. Chambers and a couple of the other neighbours and hightail it out of there as soon as it was obvious that this wasn't no weird disease outbreak but full-fledged Armageddon. The reason he sat in that lumpy chair silently watching the emergency broadcast channel and ignoring the screams from down the block. It always came back to Merle. 

Mrs. Chambers deserved better – but so did he.


End file.
